The Lakota Way: Stories and Lessons in Living

Story Summary: “The Story of No Moccasins”

The author says that the elderly are the best models for how we should conduct ourselves. This story is about an old woman named No Moccasins who lived before the arrival of the horses (before 1700).

She and her husband, Three Horns, have a son and daughter and many grandchildren. Everyone who visits her lodge left with food and gifts, and she is known for her fine quilting skills. Her husband is known for being an excellent warrior, despite his advanced age, and his long lance is decorated with feathers.

When Three Horns becomes ill at 70, everyone is surprised. Guests come from far, and Three Horn’s wife attends to them. He tells them the story of how, when he was younger, he went south to hunt and met a woman named Carries the Fire and became engaged to her. After enemies raided his wife’s village, he went on the warpath against them and was captured. He was kept without food and was humiliated until his wife appeared before him and rescued him. His captors followed him, but his wife, seeking a way to put them off their trail, put her moccasins near the creek. Her husband told her that her new name should be No Moccasins.

His wife never told anyone how they had escaped, but her husband believes it is now time to give her due and to compliment her quiet bravery. He asks that when he dies, his eagle-feather staff and weapons should be moved to the women’s wide of the lodge to honor his wife’s humility. After Three Horns dies, she gives his staff and weapons to a warrior society, and everyone bestows gifts upon No Moccasins. When she dies, they leave her with moccasins for the trip to the afterlife.

Story Summary: “The Quiet Path”

The Lakota are urged to engage in “Waktoglaka” (9), which involves telling one’s exploits in battle. However, everything they say must be backed up by at least one other person. They must be asked to tell these tales and must exercise humility when doing so; in fact, humility adds to every virtue, including goodness.

Crazy Horse, an Oglala Lakota (one of the seven Lakota groups), is considered among the most humble, even though he defeated General George Crook at the Battle of Rosebud and defeated Colonel George Custer’s Seventh Cavalry at Little Bighorn. The Lakota remember him for his humility above all else because he was a great leader who stayed calm in battle. He used to dismount from his horse to take better aim at his targets and was earlier known as His Horse Stands in Sight.

Although he could have bragged about his exploits, he never did so. He was shy and rarely spoke in public. Others spread his fame far and wide, and after the US Army intensified its battle against him following Little Bighorn, 900 people, including women and children, followed him. He was the last Lakota leader to surrender to the US.

The author feels that Crazy Horse’s “humility outshines his fame” (12). For the Lakota, being humble is all important, and leaders are asked to serve rather than stepping forward. They believe that arrogance clouds people’s thinking, but that humility provides clarity. The author recalls how his uncle, who was then head of the Rosebud Sioux tribe, was berated by a woman who had been denied services by the tribal agency. His uncle listened and responded with gratitude for the woman coming to tell him her problem, and she walked away without a comment.

The author tells the story of Iktomi, the Trickster, who is hungry. Iktomi sees Mato, the bear, and treats the bear with confidence and tells him to step aside. The bear believes he is more powerful than Iktomi, but Iktomi makes him a deal—whoever can cough up the most arrowheads and lance points will win. The bear closes his eyes while coughing up these items, and Iktomi eats them. He then coughs up these items and wins the contest.

The author writes that he is wary of a candidate for office who touts his or her achievements and prefers more humble candidates. He tells the story of two hunters who, walking in difficult times, come upon a cloud of mist from which a naked woman emerges. The first hunter tries to take advantage of her, but the second tells him not to. The first vanishes in the mist, and she tells the second to prepare a lodge for her. When she arrives, she tells the elders about seven rituals that will help them and gives them a sacred pipe. She then walks through the mist and emerges as a white female buffalo; this is the story of the coming of the White Buffalo Calf Maiden. These rituals still sustain the author’s people. This story is about the importance of humility, as the woman helps the humble warrior. An arrogant person, the elders say, will falter, as he or she cannot see the path in front of him or her, but a humble man has a light burden and will be able to move forward.

Story Summary: “The Story of the Giants”

There is a ridge in Tripp County, South Dakota in the prairie west of the Missouri River, a place once called the Great Muddy. There, one summer, Red Calf’s people are camped, when a great storm blows in after Cloud and Plum are married. In addition to the storms, the camp is menaced by Iya, the Giant, who takes Plum away from Cloud and tosses her into his mouth. The Giant also destroys lodges and throws other women and girls into his mouth. Cloud and seven other men go after Iya while Red Calf moves his people north towards the Great Muddy River.

Cloud, who has never seen Iya but has only heard about him, sees him. Iya is so large he flattens everything in his path. Cloud thinks of a way to catch Iya by luring him to a hole with his incessant hunger. The men dig and dig to make a hole to trap the smelly giant, Iya. They do not stop for sleep while Cloud and Yellow Hawk try to distract Iya with fires and running about. Yellow Hawk hurts his leg, so it is up to Cloud, thinking of Plum in Iya’s stomach, to lure the giant by himself to the trap that is now ready. Cloud is almost captured by Iya, but thoughts of Plum give him strength until Iya falls into the brush covering over the trap and dies. Then Cloud cuts open the giant’s stomach and rescues the women and girls inside. The warriors cover Iya’s body, making the ridge, and Plum and Cloud live together and have a boy and a girl and several grandchildren.

Story Summary: “The Meaning of Eight Miles”

The author’s grandfather, Albert Two Hawk, worked for the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in the 1930s. As part of a construction crew building a dam, he woke early in the morning, walked eight miles, guided a scoop all day, and walked eight miles home. The author’s grandfather was a skilled man, and more importantly than possessing skills, he also had perseverance. He worked hard to earn a dollar a day during the Depression to send home to his family. He kept rising day after day, willing himself to work hard.

The author’s grandfather had examples of people before him who had persevered, such as Oglala Lakota leader Crazy Horse. In September of 1877, Crazy Horse was killed because the white commanders were jealous of the way Crazy Horse commanded the loyalty of his people. The only other leader who had the same level of loyalty was the Hunkpapa Oglala leader Sitting Bull, who had been driven into Canada. In 1889 and 1890, the Lakota began to practice the Ghost Dance, a way to summon their dead ancestors and restore their way of life before the arrival of whites, and the whites were frightened by the dance. They arrested Sitting Bull, who died while under arrest. There was no one left who could mount an organized resistance to white control. This meant that the best the Lakota could do was persevere under white control and keep their customs alive. They mustered spiritual strength to survive.

The author asked his grandfather about how he kept building the dam. His grandfather replied that he had no choice and told his grandson about a lazy man who became so lazy that his parents and sister had to wait on him hand and foot. When his parents died, he decided to wait for his own death on his grave to spare his sister. Even on the way there, he turned down an offer to eat some corn because it was not husked.

The author mentions others who persevered, including the Oglala Lakota (Pine Ridge Sioux) long-distance runner Billy Mills, who won the Gold Medal in the 10,000-meter race when no one thought he would win in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. He also mentions Sicangu Lakota (Rosebud Sioux) major general Lloyd Moses and Dr. Ben Reifel, another Rosebud Sioux who was elected several times to the US House of Representatives in the 1950s and 1960s. All these people had to reach within themselves for the strength to succeed in a world that didn’t think they could.

The author writes about his grandmother, Nellie Two Hawk, who lived as a widow for nine years after the death of her husband, to whom she was married for 55 years when he died in 1975. She had the same calm dignity during those years as in her earlier years, when her lost her younger sister Fannie to the Spanish influenza in 1918.

Marshall speaks of the many times in which Iya has threatened him, as it threatens others, and he has had to reach within himself for the strength to persevere. He thinks of the Blue Rock Dam in South Dakota, eight miles from where his grandparents lived, when he reminds himself that he can face anything.